The traditional meaning of out of pocket is the amount of money you have to pay upfront before because the amount you are entitled to haven’t been processed yet. However, in recent times, in the business world, out of pocket has come to mean uncontactable or unreachable.
For example…
First, the traditional example name – if your health-based business doesn’t provide a device known as ‘HICAPS’ in Australia, you would charge your patient for the entire cost of consultation and then issue them with an invoice. The patient would be out of pocket of that amount at that stage. They then contact their health fund which will reimburse part of the bill back. Now, for the second usage of the term, if someone says James is out of pocket, it could mean that he’s unavailable, not his money.
